


Starting Home

by Perpetual Motion (perpetfic)



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-11
Updated: 2015-01-11
Packaged: 2018-03-07 02:21:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3157547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perpetfic/pseuds/Perpetual%20Motion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joe and Bill get out of the hospital.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Starting Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kitsune_Scribe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kitsune_Scribe/gifts).



It’s months in the hospital before Joe and Bill finally get released. Their legs are healed. They’ve practiced with their fake legs and their crutches. They’ve been through more hours of psychiatric therapy than either of them even knew were possible.

“I am so glad to see the exit of this goddamn place,” Bill mutters to Joe as they stand in the garden and smoke. Bill’s on his crutches, and Joe’s got his leg strapped. It’s early evening and chilly. “One more day, and we’re never coming back again.”

“Nah, we’ll just go to some other hospital every time something tweaks wrong,” Joe replies. 

“Don’t start with that shit, Joe. Come on.” Bill punches him in the arm, and Joe glares at him. “Be happy.”

“I am,” Joe says, breathing out hard. “But come on, Bill, what are we gonna do?”

“Find work. Plenty of shit we can still do. We’re young and good looking.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Joe says. He jams his hands into his pockets and looks away from Bill. “I mean, what are _we_ gonna do?”

Bill finishes his cigarette and flicks it towards the flower bed to his left. “I didn’t think _we_ needed to do anything,” he replies. “I figured we’d keep doing what we’ve been doing and more.”

Joe slants him a look. “Hell, Bill, we ain’t even…” He glances over his shoulder to make sure no one’s nearby. They’re the only ones out right now. “We ain’t even done more than kiss a little.”

Bill grins, wide and flirty and so goddamn attractive Joe wants to punch him right in his pretty teeth. “That’s why we gotta get out of here and to that boardinghouse I found. Do I have to explain everything to you, Joe?”

Joe shakes his head. “How do you even know we can make it work?”

“Zim-Zam, goddamn, we’re Easy Company,” Bill sings. 

Joe rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling.

*

The boardinghouse is clean, and their room is at the end of the hall next to a storage closet. There’s only one double bed, and Joe gives it a long look while Bill starts to unpack his duffel. “Really?” Joe asks.

“What? It’s cheaper. Plenty of guys do it.”

“Right,” Joe replies. He tosses his own duffel on the bed and unpacks his things. He takes his wallet out of his pocket and removes a slip of paper. It’s the name and number of an employment agency that works with people like Joe and Bill. People who are missing limbs, Joe thinks and pulls a face.

“What is it?” Bill asks.

Joe drops into the chair in the corner of the room and reaches down to straighten his fake leg. “Nothing,” he says. He tips back his head and stares at the ceiling. 

“You’re a maudlin fuck, you know that?” Bill asks. He walks around the bed and looms over Joe. 

“Well, I went to war with two legs, and I came back with one, and now I gotta work with a special employment agency to get a job. Kind of hard to deal with sometimes, Bill.”

“Not if you don’t make it hard,” Bill replies. He leans over and places a hand on each arm of the chair, bracketing Joe in. “We got through it, Joe. We’re here now. So we’re down half a leg each. So what.”

“So what? So what?! So, I was a fucking paratrooper, Bill!” Joe yells.

“You still are, you idiot!” Bill pushes off the arms of the chair and turns on his heel. He falters and tilts to one side. He catches himself on the wall a second before Joe wraps an arm around his waist to steady him.

“Be careful, for god’s sake,” Joe says.

“So I’ll have a bruise on my ass,” Bill replies. “Big deal.”

“Goddamnit,” Joe mutters.

Bill huffs a laugh as he touches Joe’s arm where it’s still around his waist. “You gonna let me go, pretty boy?”

Joe stiffens. His hand clenches in the fabric of Bill’s shirt. “No,” he says after a few seconds. “And I ain’t a pretty boy.”

“Sure you ain’t,” Bill says. He turns around, careful of his leg this time. He runs his hands up Joe’s arms and grins when Joe clearly shivers at the touch. “Mouth like that, you’re the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“I’m gonna punch you in the head.”

“You do that, we can’t practice necking,” Bill replies.

“I don’t need practice,” Joe says. He presses his mouth against Bill’s, soft for just a second before pressing in hard, tongue licking along Bill’s lower teeth. He fists the front of Bill’s shirt in both his hands and drags Bill towards the bed, dropping down and pulling away from Bill so he can remove his shirt.

“Looks like you’re planning on petting, not necking,” Bill says. His own shirt is already half-off.

“You said we’d do more than just kiss,” Joe replies, and the challenge in his eyes makes Bill hiss and tackle him, biting his collarbone and scratching his fingernails down his side. 

“You know how long I’ve waited for this, Joe? You got any idea?”

Joe actually does. Bill’s asked him this question before, admitted to looking at Joe long before the hospital. Joe still doesn’t know what to do with that information. It wasn’t that he wasn’t looking at Bill before the hospital, but it still feels unreal that everything they’ve been through, they were on the same page for so long and didn’t know it. 

“You know what you do to me, Bill?” Joe replies, tugging at Bill’s hair so Bill will kiss him again. “Make me fucking crazy,” he mutters in Bill’s ear as Bill sucks hard on his neck. 

“I fucking better,” Bill says. His grin is wide and dirty, and Joe flips him on his back and kisses it off his face. 

*

Afterwards, sweaty and sticky, and with Joe’s trousers still hanging off his fake leg, they share a cigarette and a pillow. 

“Don’t be a maudlin fuck ever again,” Bill says. “We fucking made it, Joe.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Joe grouses, but he’s smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> Self-betaed. Typo call-outs appreciated.


End file.
